


the undone and the divine

by uglyguccislippers (Hyb)



Series: isolated incidents [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M, Old Gods, Ritual Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 03:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17891009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/uglyguccislippers
Summary: Prayers itch in his ear, louder and more urgent with time.[In which Kun is a god, and the world is young.]





	the undone and the divine

**Author's Note:**

> title from "bedroom hymns" by florence and the machine

When they cut him from his father’s thigh he came into the world at his full height, scrubbing blood from his eyes. They said this is the sky and this is the earth, this is the sea, and the shadow beneath the mountain is the land of the dead. And Kun knew then that he was a god, and felt himself in wild grapes ripening under the sun, in the shriek of a madwoman carried by the wind.

They told him his mother was human, though she died when he was still unborn and grafted to his father’s flesh. So he watched them closely, the mortals, for some spark of familiarity. He wandered to the edge of the distant sea, the frozen mountains, was embraced and given new names before he returned home with the summer. And they were bright, hungry, eager to learn their bodies, brew their wine and mead. When they beckoned him he answered and was enthused by their revels.

They jointed and roasted fat goats for him, and he poured them unmixed wine. He watched them dance all unseen and was glad. But in his name they desecrate, and in his name they rip a living man limb from limb, they break his lyre to splinters underfoot and stopper his golden song forever. Jaehyun grieves the loss of a man who loved him well, and Kun has never seen his brother’s eyes so black and hateful turned upon him.

Kun learns shame, then, and he does not descend from the mountain for years.

Prayers itch in his ear, louder and more urgent with time. There is a new bacchant, they beseech him, pleading that the old priestess who raised him to take her mantle will not live forever.

This is the bargain. The high priestess, more rarely a priest, waits naked in the dark to come into their power. And Kun, faceless, visits his divinity upon them.

Jungwoo has been saved for marriage to his god. Kun watches him before he reveals his presence, how his fingers curl nervously in the furs, how he worries his lip between his teeth. He cries when Kun breaches him but still he’s gasping _please, please_ , and his arms lock boldly behind Kun’s neck.

He seemed hungry then. Kun should have known that once fed he would be insatiable.

 

 

“You were praying,” Kun says, and the birds in the boughs go quiet out of deference. “Rather urgently,” he adds.

In the shade of old trees thick with grapevines, Jungwoo makes a show of stirring as if from sleep. He finds Kun, his bare face in the sun now familiar, and his eyes laugh.

“Who, me?”

“Did you need something?” The sternness in his voice is undermined when he kneels and cups Jungwoo’s slender ankle.

Jungwoo inches his chiton up his thighs and beams.

“Well, since you asked.”

 

 

This is how he finds himself among the mortals, time and again, close enough to smell their sweat beneath the oil. The revels are new and intoxicating, the firelight climbing amid the cypress trees, the flutes and horns and drums, the ring of dancers with their eyes fluttering in ecstasy.

And Jungwoo, with wine pouring down his chin as his eyes find Kun when no others can see.

The priest grows famous for the frenzy of his worship. How he claws the earth and croons and howls when the unseen god enters him, how welts will rise on his soft skin, his neck bruised where the god holds his life between his teeth.

He blossoms into the fullness of his power, ripens like some lush fruit. The cult thrives, swells with eager new members, and when they gather the blessed earth is soaked with spilled wine and seed. In the mornings they pick the twigs from their hair, made shy and laughing by dawn. An inescapable tenderness buds in Kun, watching from afar as they clean their scrapes and scratches with wine and limp home in their torn clothes.

 

 

In truth, the revels are frequent and Kun is well tended. He needn't descend from the mountain so often to visit the cave Jungwoo calls home, with its deep well of clear water, mattresses stuffed with wool and piled into a plush bed amidst all that chill. When they are alone Kun laughs into his throat and listens to his silvery songs.

But by fire and shadow, in the din of voices, Jungwoo’s eyes are streaked in kohl and he looks more than mortal. He was once so shy and amazed under Kun, that first night, but watches him like a wolf now. Amused, like he knows something a god cannot.

Kun makes it too easy for him, he knows. Comes to chasten him needlessly, remind him of his duties, interrogate him, but his hands are hungry for the worship of Jungwoo's skin. He can't be sated until he drinks the sounds from Jungwoo's mouth, and all this his priest seems to know with his lovely secret smiles.

 

 

They take him for another reveler, that night. Mortal, of an unassuming height, drinking deep of the wine. His priest stands naked with a crown of leaves, sacrificial blood down his chin, his chest, spattering his thighs. In the firelight he glows like he was made at the heart of the world, before time, before even Kun.

They all see him approach, but only Jungwoo knows the truth of it when a god kneels in the dirt for him, when Jungwoo takes him by the skull and ravishes his throat, how a god watches him through dark and warning eyes and yet grips him by the thighs and drags him deeper.

Jungwoo's mortal years are so few. It doesn't trouble Kun anymore, to lay down his pride like a burdensome cloak and come seeking Jungwoo among the shade trees in summer, or to warm him by the fire when winter freezes the dirt hard.

He thinks he understands, now, why mortals are so eager to worship.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> playing real fast and loose with mythology! (like, really fast and loose. dionysus was more into the omophagia deal and bacchant is a roman term i stole because maenad wasn't quite precise enough.) this is cobbled from some fun asks in my curiouscat because the kunwoo community deserves at least a morsel
> 
> find me yelling on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hyb_jabbers)


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